A bill requiring autism awareness training for law enforcement officers is starting to move in both chambers of the Florida Legislature. It comes after a high profile incident that occurred in South Florida last year involving a black man, an autistic man, and law enforcement.

The Florida Department of Health has confirmed the first case of Zika Virus in Leon County. The move comes as the state initiates an aerial spraying in a Miami neighborhood where the virus has been spread by local transmission.

For the past 60 years, South Florida has been wanting to separate from North Florida. On October 2014, the City of South Miami approved a resolution advocating to split Florida into two separate states. South Miami Vice-Mayor Walter Harris says there are major differences between both parts of Florida.

“North Florida is rural, as you know, South Florida is urban. North Florida is very conservative. South Florida is considered very liberal,” Harris says.

A hearing has been scheduled for next week in a Miami lawsuit challenging Florida’s constitutional ban on gay marriage. A judge will decide whether to allow several socially conservative groups the chance to defend the ban in court.

The suit was filed by six same-sex couples with help from LGBT-rights group Equality Florida and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Next week circuit judge Sarah Zabel will hear arguments from the Florida Family Policy Council and other groups trying to intervene on behalf of voters who put the same-sex union ban in the state constitution.

The full Florida House is set to vote on a bill that's pitted Florida taxi cab operators against car-service tech company Uber. The measure narrowly passed its final committee today after its sponsor narrowed it to apply only in Tampa instead of statewide.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater rolled up their sleeves and joined a delegation of representatives from more than 100 Miami-Dade County groups to serve a hungry line of lobbyists, politicians and staffers large plates of paella in the midday sun today.

On Monday, a Florida Senate panel OK’d the idea of putting money toward marketing the state as a medical tourism destination. The senator pushing the bill says advertising high-quality medical care could help Gov. Rick Scott meet his goal of attracting 100 million visitors in a year.

House Speaker Will Weatherford kicked off the ceremonial swearing in of former Republican lawmaker Carlos Lopez-Cantera as the next Lieutenant Governor of Florida but, Monday evening’s ceremony wasn’t the first time Cantera took the oath of office. He had been officially sworn in hours before in a private ceremony in the Governor’s office, making him the first Hispanic and first Miamian to ever be appointed to that position. Governor Rick Scott, whose support among Latinos in the state has all but dried up, may be hoping to use that to bolster his reelection campaign.

Archeologists working on an island just off Miami believe they’ve found a unique stone Indian burial mound. But with part of the site underwater, the team is battling a rising sea that threatens to cover the East Coast’s low-lying areas within the century.

It’s not easy to get to the dig site.

First, a 40-minute ride in a National Park Service boat ironically nicknamed Speedy.

Then, just off Totten Key, archeologist Josh Marano navigates the boat through a manmade channel cut from rocks that have shipwrecked lesser captains.

An ongoing investigation has revealed children in Florida’s foster care system are being recruited as prostitutes. The Florida Department of Children and Families says it’s horrified by the allegations that pimps were targeting girls in group homes subcontracted by the state.

Four Miami-Dade men were arrested this week for allegedly recruiting girls in foster care group homes

Two South Florida natives recently made a trip from the Caribbean island of Bimini to Miami. But, they didn’t go by boat; they completed the 50-mile trip standing on paddle boards. The duo used their arduous journey to bring awareness to the problem of plastic trash in our oceans.

Should public defenders be able to excuse themselves from future cases if their current case load is too high? And should criminal defendants have the right to change their pleas within a month of the original plea? These were the questions the Florida Supreme Court considered in Thursday’s oral arguments.

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